


In the midst of tragedy, the shame is ours

by carbon13



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-10 13:58:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carbon13/pseuds/carbon13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To Will, it always seems to begin with a murder and end with a good old fashion haunt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the midst of tragedy, the shame is ours

To Will, it always seems to begin with a murder and end with a good old fashion haunt. Katz liked to compare Will to the show Supernatural after a case. She once said the two brothers used to be the haunter until they became the haunted. It's much the same with Will, only he deals with the shadows of humanity and that my friends, is much worse. What Will does fucks him up and the fireplace begins to work as a cage to an emaciated child stuffed into a tiny box in the night -

 _"Please, I just want to go home," she whispers and stares at him with her eyes bulging from her face. Her thin arms don't move but her fingers do and they go to tug at the torn cloth she wears for dignity whilst she wets herself_ -

And the  dirty windows reflects a man who plays with God and that leaves a chill in his bones because a man who dares play with God is more frightening than a man who deals with the devil. The reflection smiles and moves at its own accord and the place Will calls home is lost to the night.

 -

They call him The Red Dragon because he enjoys lighting children on fire and slitting the wrist of the parents. Price thinks it's because the killer wants to die. Will believes it's because the killer's parents were suicidal (were being the operative word) and also that he loves blood and games and gore.

"He gets off on the crackling of skin," Will affirms as he sits in Jack's office. His hands hold boundless energy that demand to be expelled through the squeezing and shaking of his right hand.

The world is never much so bright but a constant boreal winter that dampens the colours to a bleak grey and blue that follows Will to Jack's office. The cold can be felt with the silence of thought, the mourning for dead children who cried desperately to a darkness that stood aside and took pleasure in their screams.

Jack doesn't have a fireplace in his modern office but the cackling of burnt firewood in the back of Will's conscience is very real to him. A charred arm sticks out unequivocally and the acrid smell of charcoal-like throttles Will's throat.

He swallows his vomit.                                         

 -

"Death," Hannibal says, "is one of the few, if not only thing we are certain of in life."

The air feels frosty and Will paces across the threshold to stare at the sketching upon Hannibal's wall.

"What do you expect we do with it?" Will turns to stare at the doctor's shoulder.

Hannibal walks towards Will as slowly as one would to a stray and stops centimetres behind Will. He stares at the drawing, marvels at its paintwork, its texture and tone. 

"We certainly should not be afraid of it."

They stare at Francisco Goya's _Yard with Lunatic._ Will feels the fear on his bare feet from the biting stones and Hannibal tastes the sweet madness of their minds.

"Have you ever thought, Will, that death is a part of life? As much as it is all around us, we tend to forget."

Will walks away from the photo and takes a seat on the settee. He's wound up like a jack-in-the-box, ready to explode from his confines. The wait is perfectly exuberant. It makes Hannibal all the more invested.

Will rubs at his hands, squeezes between his teeth, "Murder is wrong, Dr. Lecter," as if it was the truth.

"And humanity is good," Hannibal refutes. "For God has cleared our sins."

"Monsters sin." Will utters.

" _'Thou shalt not kill'_ the sixth commandment I am very well aware of." Hannibal goes to sit across from Will, revels in Will's squirms, "we cannot deny the murders of God our saviour. Perhaps, we are elevating victims for an early ticket to the higher place." Hannibal tilts backwards to his chair. "Or perchance, God is not real after all. And all murder is; is just another intrinsic product of living."  

 -

On a Saturday in the forensics lab Will discovers a mindset he's seen echoed by the Red Dragon from a member of the forensic team. It's an apt fit and Will knows the dangers of accusing another member of the FBI for murder. He begins to accumulate the evidence, walks the hallways to Jack's office when he spots the size eleven shoes of Brian Adams and stares at the point pass Adams shoulders.

-

_Oh_  
 _If only, if only_  
 _Graham looked in his eyes_  
 _The promise of death would be not a surprise._

The beautiful thing about Will Graham is that he represents the thing within the cocoon, the one who is disturbed to the point of fearful insanity. He is a gorgeous specimen to be debunked to the other side of the darkness but by God, Will is a creature of chance. The world yearns for his becoming for he will be beautiful where ever he goes.

I'd say, the darkness is fit for a mortal like Will Graham. For who supposes that beauty is a phenomenon made only for virtue.

**-**

Will awakes to find there is no smell of mortality or an ocean of bodies floating in the sea where he fishes. Winston and the rest of his strays are at  the door, barking madly at a flickering light just beyond his yard.

He grunts, pulls at his legs to swing over the bed and pads over to the light switch. In the process, he pulls away his wet shirt, allowing the yellow of a wandering light to pass a golden glow on his glistening skin before the effable moment passes as he turns on the light.

When Will discovers what the errant light is he looks back to his strays for a second before he rips the door open and in a frantic act hits Jackson in the process.

The dog whimpers but Will only hears the gushing of blood.

The fire is a small thing, not enough to burn even the smallest of houses but Will's dread is big enough to yank a cry from the dry lips of Will. The winter gets colder and the howls of his strays becomes dull and the only thing that reaches Will's ears are the pinging of panic. He sees nothing but a tunnel of darkness and just Watson in the middle.

He manages a _"no,"_ and clamps his mouth shut. When he reaches the fire, Watson lays unmoving in the dirt and Will kneels at its body, wanting to love but afraid to touch.

When Will looks back to the house it ghosts on the clouds but he's more lost than safe.

When he touches Watson, Jack pulls him away seconds later and his dogs growl viciously.

When he cries out and punches Jack in the face everything leaves him alone.

It's quiet again and the day is old.

He mourns for the first time in his life and when the silence is over and there is no more white noise to dim down the awful pain of loss, Will slowly builds up the courage to reach out and pull Watson into his arms.

He's a foolish man, a coward. A boy so petrified to touch the dead.

The fire is long gone and when Katz touches his shoulder he doesn't jerk away but looks up to her shoulder.

"We've caught him, Will," she announces and goes to sit with silence.

 -

The weeks pass and the man in the window goes missing, the child locked up in the cage vanishes, the nightmares of death diminishes and the strays don't come running to Will when he comes back.

Will's bones are frosted, his hands are bloodied cold and dead children do not run a fear in his veins but a cool stillness.

 -

In the office of Hannibal sits Will on the kork desk chair at the working table. He's sifting through expensive sheets of paper made exclusively from Italy when he stumbles upon a drawing of stag horns, raven hair and a dead trophy.  

Will's heart begins to pump ice around his vessels.

"Your thoughts on mankink, Will?" Hannibal questions as he bends over the plowed handrails of the balcony  with _The Everlasting Man_ in hand.

Will tilts his head upwards, taps thrice on the mahogany table and states, "When they are depicted as monsters, buried deep within there's always a human."

Hannibal smiles and Will mirrors the cold action.

It's always winter in Will's world and death is not so chilling anymore.

 


End file.
